Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Townsend Beach Lakeside, OH

Lakeside is a private, unincorporated census-designated place in Danbury Township, Ottawa County, sitting on the Lake Erie shore of the Marblehead Peninsula just west of the village of Marblehead.

Lakeside was founded in August 1873 by members of the Central Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church, beginning as a tented camp where Methodist revival meetings were held.

Lakeside is one of only a few continuously operating independent Chautauquas remaining in the United States, and it is known as "The Chautauqua on Lake Erie" for its summer season of concerts, lectures, worship and recreation.

The entire community, about one square mile in size, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Lakeside Historic District.

The 2020 census counted just 668 year-round residents in Lakeside, down slightly from 694 in 2010, even though thousands of visitors pour in during its roughly 11-week summer Chautauqua season.

Most Lakeside cottages stand on land owned by the Lakeside Association, with homeowners holding their lots on renewable 99-year leases.

Lakeside is a gated community during the summer season, when visitors must buy a gate pass, and it remains a dry community where alcohol is not sold or permitted on Association property.

Hotel Lakeside, whose first section was built in 1875, still anchors the community's lakefront more than a century later.

Hoover Auditorium, completed with help from a Hoover family gift during the Great Depression and renamed for the family in 1949, is the longtime home of the Lakeside Symphony Orchestra.

Lakeside's year-round population skews heavily toward retirees — in the 2010 census the median resident age was about 68 years — and local children attend the Danbury Local Schools, whose high school stands just outside Lakeside's south gate.